Byrslf
byrslf.co · Personal blog · on HN since 2016
Byrslf is a Medium publication of personal essays on work, mental health, productivity and workplace culture.
What HN saysHN links it for essays such as a post on Pixar's workplace culture, where a former employee shared a firsthand account.
27HN people shared it
5linked it in comments
25stories submitted
820story points
7 years agolast shared
2016people per year2026
Most-shared posts
- 1Pixar's Sexist Boys Club3 people · 4 points · first shared 2018 · discussion on HN
- 2How to Turn Any Negative into a Positive2 people · 9 points · first shared 2019 · discussion on HN
- 3The null hypothesis loves you and wants you to be happy 3189413d8cd02 people · first shared 2017
- 4When You Are Depressed, Make Something1 people · 684 points · first shared 2017 · 339 comments on HN
- 5How leaving a corporate job to join a startup fucked me up and sorted my life1 people · 91 points · first shared 2016 · 42 comments on HN
- 6From 15 Years of Heroin Addiction, to Author, Speaker and PhD1 people · 3 points · first shared 2019 · discussion on HN
- 7Why I don’t answer most phone calls (2015)1 people · 3 points · first shared 2018 · 1 comments on HN
- 8Thoughts on Vegas, and Why Men Keep Doing This1 people · 3 points · first shared 2017 · discussion on HN
- 9Random Acts of Kindness to Lift Someone's Day1 people · 2 points · first shared 2019 · discussion on HN
- 10Drawing for a year1 people · 2 points · first shared 2016 · discussion on HN
- 11Female Software Engineer: The best compliment I have ever received1 people · 2 points · first shared 2016 · discussion on HN
- 12How we built a profitable business in 6 weeks without market knowledge1 people · 2 points · first shared 2016 · discussion on HN
- 13How Meditation Develops Killer Creativity, Focus, and Productivity1 people · 2 points · first shared 2016 · discussion on HN
- 14The day I decided to break from my parents1 people · 2 points · first shared 2018 · discussion on HN
- 15Microservices, Blockchain, biology and evolution1 people · 2 points · first shared 2017 · discussion on HN
What HN people wrote when they linked it
vinrob92 · 2018-01-09
I liked that post by Adrien (a frenchman who is focused on productivity and organisation), lots of great insights in it! https://byrslf.co/work-on-12-projects-without-burning-out-f5bec50dafdb
malandrew · 2017-06-06
> It's not your responsibility to correct statistical misapprehensions they might have about the incidence of black crime or police use of force unless you are asked, there are plenty of people doing that already.
Whose responsibility is it? If someone is debating an issue I would hope they are familiar with and understand the underlying statistics relevant to their claims. If they claim conclusion X based on statistics Y but omit (intentionally or out of ignorance) that conclusion P is also plausible based on statistics Q, it is the responsibility of anyone aware of statistics Q to inform those claiming conclusion X that X isn't the only plausible conclusion one can arrive at because statistics Q exists that suggests conclusion P.
Are you seriously suggesting that someone aware of a different dataset that supports a different conclusion only bring attention to that dataset if those claiming the original conclusion are interested? That's preposterous.
https://byrslf.co/the-null-hypothesis-loves-you-and-wants-you-to-be-ha…
uberino · 2017-03-07
AFAIK
Again, I'm not going to try and present information contrary to what you know (it would likely just be attacked for being biased), but I would encourage you to ask yourself if you're adequately applied the null hypothesis to any institution on which you have formed a position:
https://byrslf.co/the-null-hypothesis-loves-you-and-wants-you-to-be-ha…
I would also encourage you to not consider the ways in which you believe an institution is worse than the status quo, but also consider the ways in which it is better. As an exercise, list out both when considering the relative merit of an institution. How is it better? How is it worse? Eliminate from both lists those aspects that are inevitable (for reasons of path dependency) regardless of which institution is solving the same problem. For those ways in which it is worse than the status quo, consider ways in which those could be corrected.
I won't comment on your last statement because it involves discussion of future growth prospects, which no two people will likely agree on.
jpster · 2018-03-14
Merci Grace. She's the former director of product for Slack and founder of Women in Product. She takes takes special interest in mentoring PMs who are women and people of color.
https://twitter.com/merci
https://byrslf.co/what-i-talk-about-when-i-talk-about-women-in-product…
tayistay · 2020-03-18
I was at Pixar 2006-2011. On several occasions, I would see Lasseter hugging various people in his entourage. Hugs so long, I initially wondered if someone had died. It was a bit strange. At a company meeting, in front of the entire staff, he made a comment about how attractive the women at some film festival were. I looked around at people standing next to me thinking I just had misheard. Nobody seemed particularly phased.
So the creepyness was apparent even to this lowly software engineer. Of course it was the tip of the iceberg with Lasseter.
There was this other guy who was an art director or something like that, and we used to call him a walking HR violation. Once he cornered me in the locker room and told me how all his friends are out of shape and have lousy sex. I shrugged it off as just one of the eccentric characters you encounter at the cartoon factory. He was extremely macho, and a fan of Putin, which actually made him somewhat interesting to me politically, though I disagreed with him about practically everything. Then came the 2016 election and his sexism got way out of hand and I couldn't stand him any more. I found it strange that someone with two daughters would be such a misogynist.
Turns out he had been saying creepy things to one of the same women that HR was trying to keep away from Lasseter, limiting her career. She wrote an article about her whole experience: https://byrslf.co/pixars-sexist-boys-club-9d621567fdc9